Opinion page editor Rick Holmes and other writers blog about national politics and issues. Holmes & Co. is a Blog for Independent Minds, a place for a free-flowing discussion of policy, news and opinion. This blog is the online cousin of the Opinion
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Opinion page editor Rick Holmes and other writers blog about national politics and issues. Holmes & Co. is a Blog for Independent Minds, a place for a free-flowing discussion of policy, news and opinion. This blog is the online cousin of the Opinion section of the MetroWest Daily News in Framingham, Mass. As such, our focus starts there and spreads to include Massachusetts, the nation and the world. Since successful blogs create communities of readers and writers, we hope the \x34& Co.\x34 will also come to include you.

Last week, it was sort of conceded that even though Markey won in Massachusetts that Massachusetts is about as evenly split politically as the rest of the country. And Rick made an interesting comment that Nancy Pelosi was more popular than John Boehner, which seemed like a toss away comment.
I’ve spent a lot of time this weekend in contact with friends in San Francisco–folks from my days living there in the early 90s. Looks like I’ll be getting invited to a lot of weddings in the next year. But a number of friends were talking about the diminishing liberalism of San Francisco, something that I’ve addressed here before. At many of the gay pride and other celebratory events over the past four days, a lot signs read “Banned by Clinton, Waffled by Obama, Cleared by Roberts,” meaning that Clinton signed DOMA, Obama cowered on taking a strong position on Prop 8 while running for president because it was not politically expedient, and a conservative court addressed both. Take the issue of gay marriage off the culture wars table, and San Francisco isn’t necessarily that liberal. Equally, Asians in San Francisco aren’t real happy with amnesty for 11 million illegals, most of them Latino. For all of the the discussion of the white minority, there is a hefty law abiding Asian population in San Francisco that feels equally threatened by an influx of illegal Latino voters. And then add the transit strike, brought to you by one of Obama’s largest supporting unions. And for all the liberal interventionists, the concept of spying on our allies may be a step too far. And another friend of mine, who is now planning his wedding, told me that the gay community, from a lifetime of closeted living, is more sensitive to privacy issues than any other community in America.
Pelosi may be more popular than Boehner in the same way that liver is more popular than tripe on America’s dinner table. But there is a growing sense that Pelosi may be in deep, deep political trouble in 2014, and she knows it. The risk to her political future comes from an energized conservative Asian population, merged with a depoliticized gay population that feels no loyalty to the Democrats, paired with a wealthy Latino community that knows where its bread is buttered, and the old main line whites who are disaffected by Obama.
For all the talk that the GOP is in array, its clear that when it comes to the Democrats, if Massachusetts and San Francisco are in play, the Democrats have serious problems too.